


Hollow Bones

by caravaggio_bosch



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Bottom Merlin, Bulimia, Eating Disorders, Eventual Smut, M/M, Magic Revealed, Snarky!Merlin, smart!Arthur
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-16
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-08-24 08:05:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16636061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caravaggio_bosch/pseuds/caravaggio_bosch
Summary: Arthur realizes that there's something. . . wrong with Merlin. He doesn't have the words to describe it. He doesn't have the words to say, even to himself, how it makes him feel. But  he'll have to find those words quickly if he stands a chance of saving Merlin, or himself, from whatever this is.





	1. A Lesson in Discomfiting Emotions

Before now, before this, Arthur had never really considered Merlin’s features. There were the ears, of course, and the hair and the face, all put together- he had never really considered the boy. 

Plenty of servants were thin, often from having to share a day’s meal among large families. Arthur knew this, and while not ideal, it was certainly a plausible explanation for Merlin’s lithe form. 

Of course, he was a bit suspicious, given that he knew Merlin should be receiving more than enough with Gaius, but then again, perhaps he was just a lanky boy-almost-man.

It wasn’t until about four months into Merlin’s service to Arthur that he thought something might be wrong. Admittedly, Arthur struggled with empathy, and for as much as he was worried he was also nosy. A curious boy, the one thing he hated most was having things kept from him. Now, though, Arthur almost wished he hadn’t gone looking.

They were on a hunting trip, routine. His duty was to be seen helping his men, and Merlin went on his actual duties to his lord. Though, after only a few kills, Merlin managed to cover himself head to toe in animal entrails. 

“Merlin” drawled Arthur “just change into my spare breeches and tunic, will you? You’re going to start stinking soon.”

“No, I’ll be fine” Merlin said, trying to vigorously scrub one spot on his shirt, effectively smearing the blood around and further ensuring an irreversible stain.

“Really, as your prince, I demand that you change” stated Arthur authoritatively, less amused.

“Oh, fine” conceded Merlin, grabbing Arthur’s clean clothes.

“Hey” Arthur said “At least wash in the stream first.”

Merlin gave him a weary glance before making his way down the bank and out of sight, clean clothes in hand. Arthur waited a few minutes before walking just far enough to the edge to see the boy.

What he saw horrified him.

Merlin, his back to Arthur, washed bulging knees with spider leg fingers. Arthur could count each knob of his spine. There was nothing to him. If Merlin wasn’t moving, Arthur would have said the body was dead.

He retreated, and felt the bile rising in his throat.

A few minutes later, Merlin found Arthur sat beneath a tree, eating some berries from the palm of his hand.

“Do you know if there’s any twine around?” Asked Merlin, holding up the pants with one hand.

“There should be some at camp.” Arthur replied, standing “Would you like some berries?”

“No, thanks” said Merlin with a shrug.

“What about some cheese when we get back to camp?” Asked Arthur.

“Oh, no, thank you” replied the boy.

“We have some sweetbread, I think, or we could cook up some of the venison you hacked at- I’m sure there’s still at least one good cut left.” Arthur offered, trying to sound nonchalant.

“Arthur, really, I’m fine.” Merlin replied, eyes narrowed “We should pack up and go, anyway. We can still make it back before nightfall.”

“Right” Said Arthur.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Back in Camelot Arthur started paying much closer attention to his useless servant. There was spark to him, certainly, and a smile that lit the whole world up when you caught him off guard with a joke or well veiled compliment. But, Arthur wondered, was that clumsiness really just the result of his lanky arms? Surely it’s rather hard to trip over your own feet so often.

A fortnight after they arrived back from that trip, Arthur found a not entirely unexpected sight in his chambers. Merlin was sprawled across the floor, clearly fallen. He didn’t seem to be conscious. Arthur wanted to say, later, that he rushed to the side of the boy and heroically carried him to the chambers of the physician in one fowl swoop. But he did not.

Rather, Arthur stood there for a moment, then another, examining the prone form. He was wearing the pants Arthur had lent him, but from the way the shirt rode up Arthur could see that it was tied very tightly with twine. He might have been able to fit the boy’s whole waist in the circumference of his hands.

With a kind of morbid curiosity, Arthur took a step forward, taking in more of the tableau the boy made. It was sickly, disgusting, and Arthur felt true repulsion. He almost gagged. But then, out of somewhere in the deep recesses of his soul, he felt something new.

It was pity.

Arthur, the brute, felt pity.

It was then he was compelled the boy's side, and he tried to snap him out of it, to gently tap his face, to shake those bony shoulders. But he was so afraid of just snapping the bones like twigs he stopped, instead deciding to take Merlin back to his own chamber with the physician.

Arthur carried the boy. He was so light it felt like nothing; he could have carried triple the weight and still have been able to run. The boy couldn’t weigh more than ninety pounds.

Arthur then wondered what kind of ailment the boy had, and if he was actively dying or just very ill, if there was any hope of recovery. More than anything, he wondered why the boy had not told him.

Merlin, the young, foolish boy. Did he really think Arthur such an unsympathetic dolt that he wouldn’t care that the boy was gravely ill? Why did the boy stay in his service? Even the king would understand taking a leave from work to die in peace.

It then hit him that if the boy died, if Merlin died, Arthur would be very, very sad.

What an emotion. He was suddenly possessed with a vision of the future, a unbearable future, one where Merlin had ceased to be. One where Arthur was, well, no longer the same. One where everything, every moment of his life from that instant on, would be haunted.

Gaius, the old man, was sleeping when Arthur arrived bearing Merlin’s prone form. He deposited the boy on a bench, more and more worried that he hadn’t woken up yet, even after being moved. Not even a twitch. Arthur roused Gaius, and before he knew it Arthur was in the hallway with the door slammed behind him, Gaius as cordial but as quick as ever.

 

______________________________________________________________________________

Much to Arthur’s surprise, Merlin was back the next day.

“I trust you’re feeling better.” Arthur intoned.

“Yes, much, just a 24 hour bug. I’m sorry you had to find me” Merlin replied, hands shaking as he worked.

“Well, I’m glad to hear you’re in good health.” Arthur replied.

After that, Arthur followed the boy, when he could. He watched him eat, and the boy seemed to eat well. Arthur was perplexed. He considered asking Gaius, but from the elder’s reaction on the night the prince found Merlin, speaking to the physician seemed a non-starter. 

Just as Arthur started to accept that the boy was just skinny, or whatever he had was manageable, he stumbled on the truth. 

After lunch on one particularly fine day, Arthur gave Percival control of the training session to take a walk. He was allowed a simple pleasure now and then. He rounded the castle wall and heard the faint sounds of retching. Assuming someone was ill, Arthur followed the turret around slowly, not wanting to startle whoever it was.

A sickly frame and a mop of black hair greeted him. Merlin had two fingers down his throat.

He was making himself sick.

Arthur should have done something. He should have screamed, or told Merlin he understood, or offered help. But Arthur stood there. And then he left.

He didn’t understand.

Not one bit.

People were starving, and Merlin is giving up perfectly good food? Eating it and then, then doing that? Why?

Arthur traced his steps back and practiced the rest of the afternoon and into the evening with his knights.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

After supper, Arthur told Merlin to go out and fetch him a bouquet of moonflowers.

“Are you having a girl over?” Merlin asked, teasing.

“Something like that” answered Arthur.

He had a plan. As soon as Merlin was gone Arthur raced down to Gaius’s chambers, where he found the old man pouring over an ancient tome. Typical.

“Gaius” Arthur said by way of announcing himself “I have a question about Merlin.”

“Did he not attend you today?” Gaius replied, looking up.

“No, no, he did” 

“Has his service been subpar?” 

“Well, no more than usual.”

“With all due respect sire, I am not the boy’s keeper. If there’s an issue with his service you will have to bring it up with him.”

“No, it’s not an issue with his duties, it’s an issue with his, his health.” Arthur replied, confused as to why the old man wasn’t doing more.

Arthur thought back to those ribs, each arch of his spine protruding from his skin. While most of him, the sensible part of him, though it was repulsive, there was the smallest part of him that thought it was alluring. Rather like watching a knight, a good knight, a good soldier, get impaled on the sword of an opponent. Arthur often found himself unable to look away, morbidly curious. He always was a spoiled, curious child, anyway.

“And what seems to be the problem with his health?” Asked Giaus, raising his guard.

“Well, he’s so, he’s so. . . thin.” Arthur replied.

Gaius did not speak for a moment, a shadow crossing his face.

“That’s something you’ll have to ask the boy about, sire. I’m afraid I cannot be of assistance on that front.”

“But, but Gaius, the other day. You see, I found him, he, he was making himself sick.” Arthur refuted.

“I really can’t help you.” Gaius said with a pained expression “I, I, if you can talk to him about it, then do. But I really can’t help.”

Arthur knew, then, that something was wrong. That the boy was in danger, and that Gaius felt he could not help. And then Arthur felt something he hadn’t in many years. It was a day of firsts for him, emotionally. 

He felt rage.


	2. Symposium

Arthur left the chambers promptly, stopping a maid in the hall, sending her down to the kitchens.

A few minutes later he was back in his chambers, waiting for the polite knock, and whittling away at his newest, oldest hobby. 

It wasn’t so much that Arthur didn’t enjoy reading, it was more that he enjoyed other things vastly more. As a child, all that stillness, the lack of physical input, made his lessons in syntax and vocabulary drag, memorizing the Latin and its derivations as monks did. 

One thing his father was actually proactive about in his parenting was assuring that both he and Morgana were educated broadly. He said that a King should be able to have an intelligent conversation about anything a subject might bring to his attention. It would never do, he said, to appear out-witted by a commoner. 

So Arthur learned Greek, the foreign symbols, and Latin, with all of it’s formal rules and conjugations. Surprisingly, he could not stand the writings of emperors and generals – perhaps because they reminded him too much of all the responsibility that was only a heartbeat away. 

Rather, for a brief moment in his early adolescence, Arthur became rather entranced with the poets and playwrights of old. There was nothing like it, nothing close, and he would imagine hat it would be like to see such vulgar, tantalizing things played out, live, for him to see. It made him wish that he could have been a prince of old. 

This was also the first time, and the only time, that he saw reference to, well, relations between men. He knew enough not to ask his tutor, but he did steal several pages containing poems by Theognis. At first Arthur believed he was translating it wrong, but it was clear to him after the fifth dissection that this was a male author talking about his male lover.

He kept those pages locked in a box in the back of his wardrobe for years. In fact, he kept those pages locked in a box at the back of his wardrobe until Merlin entered his employ, and he suddenly remembered them. 

So, for the past several months, Arthur had been attempting to read. However, he found that the great Greek tragedies, though sometimes moving, held none of the appeal of that poetry, that particular verse. 

As Arthur heard the knock on his door, he realized that he hadn’t even read a line of verse, so lost in thought over his predicament.  
“Yes” he called, closing the book, rising, then sitting again.

The door opened and several young serving girls came in, carrying trays hefted with food. The first one spoke-

“Are you having a midnight feast, sire?”

At that moment Arthur became aware that the moon must already be cresting in the sky, and the girl was generous with her suggestion it was midnight.

“Something like that” He replied absent-mindedly, staring at the full roast chicken, the potatoes and the meat pies. All delicious, royal foods. Foods any servant would surely envy, foods any servant would jump at the opportunity to even smell.

“And would you fetch Merlin? Tell him something urgent has come up.”

The girls looks at him strangely, retreating quickly. Arthur was aware that he was beginning to garner a certain reputation. Arthur was aware that one day he would need to produce an heir. 

He wasn’t opposed to women. He could love a woman, he thought, the right one. He could have sex with one, and he had. But he had the feeling that most men felt about women the way that he felt about, well, about men. About one man, if you could call him that, in particular, these past few months. 

After almost half an hour, Merlin, clearly woken from slumber and disgruntled about it, arrived at his door, opening it without knocking. Arthur, expecting such an entrance, didn’t even look up, waiting for Merlin to speak. 

After an eternity of silence, Arthur staring down at his book, unseeing, Merlin finally broke.

“What is this?”

Arthur finally met Merlin’s eyes. 

“A symposium” Arthur replied. 

“What?”

“It’s great meeting of minds, to discuss lofty ideas, and vexing queries”

“A’ight” Merlin replied, clearly nervous, glued to a spot two feet from the door, arms crossed. “What could possibly be so vexing in the middle of the night?"

“I think that you know exactly what” 

“Arthur-“

“If you ate this, what would happen?” Arthur brandishes a chicken leg “Our first symposium question”

“What do you think, Arthur?”

“No, really, what would happen? I want you to tell me, honestly, what would transpire if I sat you down here at this table, and forced you to eat this, along with any other amount of this scrumptious food.” Arthur stared knowingly at Merlin’s increasingly panicked expression.

“Well, I’d, eat it” Merlin replied.

“Yes, I think you would. And then what? That is the question.”

“I would…” Merlin trailed off. And the silence dragged on. After a moment, Merlin met Arthur's eyes, and suddenly they came to a moment of mutual understanding. 

“Why?” Arthur asked, breaking the silence, then getting up. He stood across from Merlin, an arm’s length away. After a moment of no reply, Arthur added “That is the second question.”

“A lot of reasons, I guess.” Merlin finally replied

“Can I have one?” Arthur asked, tone having changed from inquiring skeptic to concerned wanderer, finally understanding himself that he was lost in a place he didn’t understand. Afraid in that moment, knowing that any answer Merlin gave would only increase his confusion.

“Punishment” Merlin mumbled.

“What?”

“Punishment” Merlin said, louder this time.

“Why? What is there to be, be punished for? Besides your terrible housework?” Arthur asked, trying to lighten the tone.

“You asked for one reason, and I gave one. We’re never discussing this again, and I’m going to bed.” Merlin said, turning to go.

“You can’t speak to me that way” Arthur replied, hurrying to block the door, looking down Merlin in his slightly glazed-over eyes. “I’m the prince”

“Not at this hour you’re not” Merlin quipped, trying to get around him, but failing, arms falling again to his sides.

“I’m your prince any hour of the day or night, and I think you’ve started to forget that. You’re staying here from now on.”

“What?”

“I’ve decided” said Arthur, puffing up “You’re to move into the antechamber, where you were always meant to sleep.”

“Fine” Merlin said

“Now” replied Arthur “Tonight”

“I don’t have any of my things” Merlin replied, raising his voice

“I don’t care!” replied Arthur, before deflating slightly “I just, just stay where I can hear you”

“You can’t- this isn’t your job, or your place, at all” Merlin said, after a moment, quieter. 

“I’m your friend”

“Prince’s don’t have friends, you told me that”

“I’m making an exception” Arthur sighed, going back to his chair and falling into it, placing his hand back on his book, into the back of which he had tucked those fateful pages. He had decided on a course of constant vigilance surrounding them, the only way to keep his secret. 

“Why?” Merlin asked, no longer fighting, but challenging slightly. He approached Arthur’s side. 

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“No, it really isn’t”

“Have you ever read Theognis?”

“Who?”

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Arthur undressed Merlin, with all the efficiency of a soldier doing battle against arbitrary evil. He didn’t know why the boy, so slender, so sickly, appealed to him. He knew that he could crush this boy if he wanted to, kill him if he wanted to, Merlin was no match against him. And yet more than anything, Arthur felt the need to take, to dominate, to control. And so, he stripped Merlin, fighting the boy’s petty objections, down to his smallclothes, and then down to nothing.

Merlin’s cock was not quite developed, as though it had been stunted. It was rather short but wide, like it had been meant to grow longer.

“When did you start, that?” 

“Twelve, maybe thirteen”

Merlin’s stomach was concave, and Arthur could count every rib. His sternum seemed as though it might break through the boy’s skin, and Arthur thought that perhaps the ribs would puncture through. 

“You know, you look like a corpse.”

“That’s rather the point” 

This made Arthur pause, as he took a moment to consider the tree limb legs and the sallow cheeks, the eyes that glazed over for want of focus - the hair that seemed to wisp, in danger of blowing away. He wanted it. In the strangest way, Arthur wanted to control Merlin’s body, make it whole, make it his.

“May I?” Asked Arthur, pushing Merlin down.

“May you what?” He asked

“Can I, can I have sex with you?” Arthur asked, unsure how to put it any other way.

A moment. Two. Unbearable silence.

“I don’t know, I mean, I really don’t know.”

“I could, show you. Could I show you?”

“Yeah” Merlin replied after moments of pause. “Only, be careful?”

“Of course.” A thought. “Wait, is this, is this your first time?”

A beat. “Yes”

“With anyone?” Arthur didn’t know why he felt the need to clarify.

“Yes” Merlin replied

“Have you ever been kissed?” Arthur asks

“Once or twice” Merlin says, still not meeting Arthurs eyes. Then suddenly he does. “Have you ever done anything like this? Not with a woman, I mean?”

Arthur knew he had to be honest, but didn’t want Merlin to lose his already tentative nerve. “No” Arthur said “But I know it’s possible.”

“How?”

“Poetry”

Arthur dove down then, kissing Merlin. Even the inside of his mouth seemed frail, and small. It dawned on Arthur then that the incredible thinness would be terrible unattractive and unnerving in a woman. But on Merlin, it was so vexing, so intriguing, as to be heady, like a drug. 

He ran his hands down Merlin’s sides, feeling those ribs, the crevices. It was sickening, reaching his thumbs into the pools above Merlin’s hipbones.  
With his right hand, he grabbed Merlin’s left leg and pulled it up slowly, giving him time to adjust. At that moment he moved his mouth to right below Merlin’s ear, biting on his neck.

“I would never hurt you” he reassured, and it came out so genuinely it almost sounded like someone else’s voice.

He hooked Merlin’s leg around his hip and reached his hand down again, feeling his erection. It was cute, somehow, to him. So different in shape and length from his own, which was currently straining in his pants. He moved back then, getting his shirt off, then his pants.

As he did Merlin looked up at him, puzzled.

“You don’t think I’m disgusting?”

“No, never”

“But, you want me to eat?” Merlin looked lost, and small, more than just physically then. 

“Yes, very much” Arthur replied, coming back, having worked his way out of his pants. Merlin looked between Arthur’s legs with a look of trepidation and astonishment. “We don’t have to”

“No, I want to” said Merlin, opening his legs, clearly having figured out at least in part what was going to happen.

Arthur moved in again, kissing Merlin’s neck, finding sensitive areas. Merlin astonished him, and made him question what he knew about what it was to be a man. Clearly, Merlin was a man, but so much of him was something else entirely.

Arthur reached to his bedside table and grabbed a pot he kept there, having performed some preliminary research. He found there were many things he didn’t much care for, but understood that some found it very enjoyable.

With slick fingers he reached down again, and it was immediately apparent that Merlin would be one of those that did enjoy it. He replied immediately to the touch of the fingers just to the outside of him, opening his legs further.

“I’m going to” Arthur started-

“I think I’ve got it” Merlin replied, smiling

“That’s…”

“Yes”

At that Arthur massaged, then worked one finger in. This much he had attempted, but clearly Merlin was having a better go of it then he did. It took little time to work in a second. All seemed to be going well, but after a minute Merlin shifted his legs down, making it hard for Arthur to continue.

“Is everything okay?” Arthur asked, suddenly panicked.

“Yes, more than, it’s only that my hips can’t, you know”

Arthur looked at Merlin in confusion

“It hurts, to keep my legs, my hips up. I don’t think I have the, the muscle. You know?”

“Do we have to…” Arthur trailed off, already retreating.

“No! No, could you just...”

Merlin shifted Arthur so that he was lying all the way on top of him, Merlin’s knees resting against the sides of Arthur’s ass, leaning, Merlin having to exert almost no effort to keep himself there.

“Would this, you know?” Merlin asked

“Yes!” Arthur replied, fairly certain he would have said yes had Merlin asked if it would work upside down with a bat biting his dick. 

Arthur reached again for the pot, careful not to shift Merlin too much, and drew out some more oil, rubbing it into Merlin and onto his eager cock. At this angle, Merlin’s hipbones poked into him.

“We have to talk about it” Arthur said, drawing his hand back.

“I know, just not now?”

“Not now” Arthur replied, entering Merlin.

Arthur went very slow, painfully slow, aware that he was doing something medically, and perhaps ethically, extremely inadvisable. But he pushed, watching as best he could for signs of distress on Merlin’s face. When there were none, he continued on eventually, after several minutes, bottoming out, rather feeling like he had run a marathon. 

“Are you?” He asked, painfully aware of Merlin’s silence.

“Yeah. I’m, yeah” Merlin replied. Looking over Arthur could see that his brow was furrowed, as though concentrating.

“I think it works better if you relax” said Arthur

“What do you think I’m focusing on?” Merlin replied, turning his head toward Arthur. Arthur kissed him then, and started rocking, delighted to hear tiny gasping moans starting in Merlin’s throat.

After a few moments, Arthur adjusted his angle, hitting a spot that made Merlin wail. 

“Are you?” Arthur started, concerned, but not sure what he was asking. 

“Holy Jesus please don’t stop” Merlin replied, reaching a weak hand up to weave in Arthur’s hair.

Arthur, mildly confused but enthusiastic, continued, hitting that spot repeatedly, feeling Merlin tense beneath him. He nosed at the crevice of his neck and shoulder, biting softly. 

After a minute, Merlin arched, and Arthur felt something wet against his belly, Merlin moaning loudly. Arthur sped up and, after just a few more strokes, came in Merlin. 

Arthur looked at Merlin then, to see his eyes half lidded. They met his, though, and Merlin grumbled, sleepily.

“I could love you”

Something caught in Arthur’s throat, and he pulled out, cock still partially hard. He reached for his tunic to clean Merlin up.

“I could love you too” Arthur replied

At that Merlin smiled, and Arthur threw the tunic back on the ground, reaching over to damp the candle.

“But I think you’re going to kill me.”

Arthur turned around at this, but Merlin’s eyes were already closed, asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will try to get the next to chapters up in a more timely fashion! Thank you for all the kudos and comments!


	3. Duty

Arthur, barefoot, stood looking at his bed, marveling at the person in it who was not him. He realized that some people, far poorer and less powerful than he, felt this simple, incredible pleasure every day. That some people were simply permitted to love someone, and be loved in return.

Of course, many people never did, he surmised. Most marriages were convenient, or rooted in political gain, even among the lower class. But even then, he had the distinct feeling that men learned to love the women they married, sometimes, most times. 

And they would share beds, and have children, and perhaps she would die, then. How sad it was, but how happy people could be, together, with the sun, and the air, and a bed that they could lie in. Arthur knew in that moment that he would trade everything, everything he had, all comfort, all security, all power, to have Merlin the way that even simple men took wives.

But his position was not his privilege, the privilege was only a byproduct of his position. His position that bound him, ethically, to care for his people. If he abandoned the throne, a power vacuum would emerge, very possibly killing many an innocent man in its terror and might. 

So, he watched the sunlight catch the dust in the early morning, and looked down at Merlin, who was impossible. So thin, and so unlike a servant, and so smart, smarter than he was, Arthur thought. And as the sunlight made Merlin’s dark hair shine, Arthur couldn’t help but climb back into his bed, already half dressed, and run a hand over those hips, those ribs.

“Run away with me” he whispered in Merlin’s ear.

Merlin started to turn at that, eyes opening. When they did, he looked contented, before suddenly bolting up, rushing to get out of bed, Arthur left in bed with his trousers on, utterly confused. 

“I – I’m sorry, I’ll go” Merlin stammered, running about, hopping into his pants. Arthur hurried out of bed, going to him, but Merlin evaded. 

“I – I’m sorry, I didn’t - ”

“Merlin!” Arthur demanded.

Merlin looked at Arthur then, meeting his eyes, lowering the shirt he was attempting to put on.

“What is happening?” Arthur asked, soft.

“I, I didn’t mean to still be here.” Merlin said, quiet, ashamed.

“Why?”

“In case you, in case you regretted it. In case you didn’t want this to have happened.”

“Merlin, if you remember, I started this.”

“I know”

“Merlin”

“I just, I thought that this wasn’t, you know, I thought that people didn’t do this, and if they did, they didn’t talk about it.”

“Have you heard of, this, before?”

“Not, not in so many words.”

“Then how did you figure people didn’t talk about it? Don’t talk about?”

“Because I always wanted it to be real, thought about it, I guess, and I had never heard anyone say anything, anything, you know.”

Arthur paused, looking at Merlin, assessing whether or not he was telling the truth, before realizing he had no reason to lie.

“Run away with me” Arthur said, not asking, after a moment.

“We can’t” said Merlin, not moving.

“You’re right.” Arthur replied, no less convinced that they should, still knowing that they couldn’t. “Sit with me”

Merlin moved, sitting on the opposite side of the bed.

“You’ll be late” he replied. Suddenly, though, he fell backwards onto the bed, eyes still open.

“I’m the prince.” Arthur said in return, looking at Merlin, now prostrate. “Having a nap?”

“No” Merlin said “It’s just a lot sometimes”

“What is?” Arthur asked

“Being upright”

Arthur, bubble punctured, looked down at Merlin, and saw, again, the problem. The angry problem. 

He was good, he realized, at compartmentalizing. There was Merlin the manservant, Merlin the friend, and now, he supposed, Merlin the . . . 

Merlin the something else.

And he loved deeply his Merlin the something else. But he couldn’t stand the sight of Merlin his friend. Merlin his confidant, who had been lying. Well, not so much lying as, what do you call it. Merlin, his friend, who had for a number of years been very deliberately killing himself. 

Arthur grit his teeth, suddenly. How dare he? How dare he lie here? How dare he make Arthur like him, make Arthur trust him, trust someone for the first time in his life, only to take it away. Not even take it away, but to erode it, erode himself?

“We need to talk about it” Arthur said, suddenly firm.

Merlin’s eyes were glassy again, coming in and out of focus. It seemed that the sudden burst of adrenaline he had experienced upon waking had worn off, leaving him as exhausted as ever. He didn’t even move to look at Arthur.

“Or what?”

“Or you stop doing it, and we don’t have to talk about it. Either we talk about it, or you stop without discussion.”

“I could run away.”

“I would catch you”

“I can be very fast”

“I don’t believe you”

“Don’t you ever just want to die?” Asked Merlin suddenly, but without gravity. As though he was asking about a supper’s taste, or the weather. 

“No” Replied Arthur, rattled, unsure.

There was nothing more to say to that. Arthur didn’t, he didn’t understand. He realized that he didn’t understand, but he knew that, unfortunately, he understood more than anyone else would.

“I can never” Merlin started, before pausing. After Arthur didn’t interject, he kept going, deliberately, slowly. “I can never, never bear a child for you. Serve as your queen, keep holy order with you. All of this is, is distinctly unholy.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Everything.” Merlin paused “I don’t want, I don’t want normal things to want. I don’t want to, to work my way up the castle ranks, and take a wife, and have a child. I don’t want any of that.”

“Me neither”

At that Merlin did turn, facing his Prince. “So then how do you, how do you cope?”

“Solitude. And recently, you”

Merlin started to cry. Not sad tears, or angry tears, or big tears, but the kind of unbidden crying that comes with the feeling of suddenly being seen. 

“So then what are we going to do?” Merlin asked, shakily.

“We’ll figure it out” Arthur said, kissing the side of Merlin’s head, and feeling only that he wanted to protect Merlin forever, compartmentalizing the anger away for another day.

That night, Merlin sat in Arthur’s chair, at his table, in his bedchamber. Arthur glowed in satisfaction, feeling a sense of ownership, under which there was an ill-disguised panic.

This morning, mid-training session with his knights, it hit him that Arthur had made a promise he had no way of keeping. He had no way of “figuring it out” with Merlin. He was bound to his people, first and foremost. 

He supposed, and this thought crossed his mind darkly, like a greedy shadow, that he could keep Merlin on, in his room, without anyone knowing. He could take a wife, a queen, and have children by her. All the while, Merlin could stay, tucked away, at Arthur’s beck and call, whenever Arthur saw fit.

It was during this series of thoughts that Arthur, distracted, was thrown back onto the hard ground behind him, completely distracted in his friendly spar again Sir Ewen. 

“I bed your pardon, my liege” said the older knight, disapproval tinging his voice. It wasn’t proper for a leader of men to be so distracted, so distant, when training his soldiers.

“No need” said Arthur, getting to his feet, embarrassed both at his tactical blunder, and his thoughts.

That afternoon, sitting in hearings, his mind was still working at the issue. He simply couldn’t keep Merlin while he took a queen. It would be completely unfair. But he couldn’t let him go, either. 

It had been so simple, that morning, to reassure Merlin, but now he could see that there was close to nothing he could do.  
Well, he supposed he could simply name a successor. But that often became messy, with people feeling as though it was open season on claiming rightful ownership of the crown. 

Deeper still, there was the deepest part of him, the truest voice of his soul, that whispered a siren song, a song which had been growing louder over the past year. It told him what he already knew – he was a man out of time, and no matter what he did, the kingdom would shatter. He didn’t know how he knew that so completely, but it lived in the same place that drew him to the poem all those years ago.

So, if everything was set to fall to ruin, if nothing he could do would ever really change it, why must he take a wife? Why not keep Merlin, parade him around, put him in a dress, and name it the end of an era?

Arthur had never experienced so many disquieting emotions in the span of a day. Damn his desirous, lecherous ego. Damn him for wanting so many things, despite the fact that a prince can want nothing. 

Even through all his uncertainty, there was nothing he could do to stop the sight of Merlin in his leather chair from sending a shock of satisfied ownership through him, a shock that settled in his groin.

Merlin was sitting before a massive table of food.

“We’ve tried this before” complained Merlin, meeting Arthur’s gaze.

“Not this way” replied Arthur, taking a seat across from Merlin in his seldom used second chair.

“Whatever you say, my liege” Merlin replied, reaching across the table to grab a boiled potato.

“No” growled Arthur, reaching out to grab Merlin’s wrist, encircling it easily, his thumb coming back to meet the first knuckle of his index finger. 

“What?” Asked Merlin, alarmed, wrist still in Arthur’s grasp.

“You don’t get to eat, yet.” Replied Arthur “When I let you of your wrist, you’ll follow my instructions”

Merlin could only nod, unsure how to react to this new Arthur.

Arthur let go, then and Merlin brought his hand back to his body slowly, finally sitting there, still, but full of a nervous energy.

“What do you feel on the subject of potatoes?” Arthur asked after a moment.

“Potatoes?”

“Yes.”

“They’re. . . fine” Merlin replied, staring between the dropped vegetable and Arthur.

“Just fine?” Arthur asked.

“I guess, they’re kind of, heavy” Merlin replied. “I guess if I try to eat a whole one, I’ll feel sick”

“Do you have to make yourself sick?”

“Not, not so much, anymore”

“When is the last time you kept anything down?”

“I had some bread, last week. It was only a little bit. And a few days ago I kept down a handful of strawberries.”

“How does that make you feel?”

“Proud.”

“You’re going to die, doing this”

“I know”

“That makes me upset” Arthur said. He had maintained a clinical calm, but he couldn’t help but voice his concern. His deep concern. The words felt wrong, not able to convey half of what he was feeling. Merlin didn’t reply, so Arthur forged on “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

Merlin’s face reddened.

“You don’t know that” Merlin replied.

“I am a man who has carried a secret, a secret that I thought no one would ever, ever get to know. That is the kind of thing that weighs on the soul, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is” Merlin lifted his eyes, meeting Arthur’s.

“You’re also carrying a secret” Arthur replied, suddenly sure of what he was saying. And suddenly having everything make sense. A wave of upset disappointment, a wave of anger, visceral and tingling, traveled out from his core to the tips of his fingers. “You’ve kept it from me, and from most everyone else, haven’t you?”

“I, I should-” Merlin moved to get up, then, but his head went wavy as it did, sometimes, when he stood or moved too quickly, and he crashed down to his seat again.

“Merlin, if you tell me, we can figure it out.”

“How could you ever, ever figure it out? How is there a way through any of this?” Merlin shouted, suddenly. “Have you once considered that I don’t want to live because there’s nowhere in the world I’m supposed to be? That I am essentially unloved, alone, and that a sense of duty isn’t enough to sustain a person that has nothing but, but obligation?”

Arthur didn’t entirely understand. In fact, there was very little that actually made sense to him. But, fumbling in the dark, he pressed on.

“Have you ever considered that I feel that way too?” Arthur asked “I’m asking you to trust me.”

“I’m so afraid” Merlin said, then. 

“I know you are.”

“What’s going to happen?”

“I promised you I would fix it. I’ll fix it.”

“What if you can’t?”

“I promised.”

There was a moment of silence as Merlin looked at Arthur, who was now standing on the other side of the table, above his ridiculous feast.

“I have magic. I am magic.” Merlin whispered, still meeting Arthur’s eyes.

And suddenly, there was nothing to be said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I am trash and didn't update for like 2 months. But better late than never, right?


End file.
